Madison, the first week of April, 1961 Close Close Close
Madison, the first week of April, 1961.
As the municipal election of 1961 approached, no one expected Mayor Ivan Nestingen to be a candidate. The 39-year-old attorney and former state representative was certainly popular enough to coast to victory first elected in a special election in 1956, elected to a full two-year term in 1957 by a 3–1 margin, he was reelected without opposition in 1959. And now he’s riding high as the champion of the Frank Lloyd Wright Monona Terrace auditorium and convention center, which he’s pushed to the verge of construction.
But Nestingen had led the Kennedy for President Club during the successful Wisconsin primary campaign in 1960, and chaired the state delegation to the national convention, so everyone assumed he’d leave Madison for a job in the new administration.
Madison in the Sixties - Women Making History
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Madison in the Sixties - Women Making History
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Madison, the first week of March, 1961
Madison in the Sixties
The Spring primary on March 7 brings double-barreled bad news for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Monona Terrace auditorium and exhibition hall.
In the morning, construction bids are opened for the ambitious project which the city approved in 1954, but which opponents have delayed since then through litigation and legislation. And it’s quickly evident that their plan to kill the project through economic pressures was a good one, as more than six years of inflation knocked the budget completely out of whack.
In November 1954, city voters approved $4 million in bonds for the project which the world-famous architect said would marry the city and the lake. The city parking utility later added $1.5 million, for a total budget of five and a half million, and the project finally went out to bid earlier this year.